


Beat It Into You

by Octinary



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Geralt Has To Use His Words, Happy Ending, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Witcher Training (The Witcher)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28365090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Octinary/pseuds/Octinary
Summary: In the aftermath of being tortured for talking too much, Jaskier can't bring himself to speak.  Geralt sympathizes with the bard, after all there was a reason he was so taciturn himself.  Questions were not so much encouraged at Kaer Morhen.  And for a lot of his life he'd always figured that is how you train a boy or an animal: hit it when it doesn't do what you want.  After all, that was how he ended up as good at monster slaying as he was.  But when it actually came down to it, that wasn't how he trained Roach.  And negative reinforcement implies, at least etymologically, the existence of an opposite.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 51
Kudos: 317
Collections: BIKM Secret Santa Event 2020





	Beat It Into You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sternenstaub](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sternenstaub/gifts).



> A Secret Santa gift for the amazing [Stern](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sternenstaub)! Now I know what you're thinking, "Oh, no. I gave Octinary a prompt that included hurt/comfort. What has she done to them?" But! I promise this is like 10% hurt and 90% comfort and all of the hurt actually happens off-screen before the fic even starts. I hope you like it! :)
> 
> Beta-ed by [Imp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/disaster_imp)!

The contract honestly didn’t look very promising, but Geralt pulled it off the notice board anyway. He doesn’t usually bother stopping in Claywich; it’s too small, too hostile to outsiders and too far away from anywhere important to usually bother with. What it is though, is about a day’s travel at a leisurely pace outside of Oreton, where he had just wrapped up a rather lucrative contract guarding a weeklong festival for the dead on Fyke Island from any specters not in the appropriately celebratory mood. Given the depressingly dismal and damp weather, the prospect of a roof, any roof, over his head made Claywich a more attractive option than usual. And as long as he was stopping in town, Vesemir’s weathered but firm voice sounded in Geralt’s subconscious, he might as well look for work. He had been hoping to find nothing so that, conscience appeased, he could move on first thing in the morning. Instead, something was apparently eating people outside of town. Heavily chewed bodies had been found, but no further details were listed, so it could be anything from trolls to necrophages to a young griffin to a perfectly un-witcherly pack of particularly aggressive stray dogs. Knowing the level of charity usually displayed by the kind people of Claywich, Geralt’s money was on the latter. The contract said to speak with Sergeant Edom at the guard house, so after depositing Roach for an exorbitant fee at the only stable in town, Geralt made his way through the stinking, sucking mud to the tall stone building that served as seat of government, guard house, court and jail.

Opening the door, he was immediately met with the unpleasant smell of dank, moldy fabric ineffectually drying in the smoky still air, black fungus growing rampant in dark corners, and the overwhelming presence of unwashed human, all accompanied by the thick earthy smell of damp earth that you only ever got in old buildings and deep caves. The olfactory assault was almost enough to have him say “Fuck it,” and abandon this quest in favour of a marginally less sensually offensive evening at the local inn, when he was stopped short by an even worse scent: chamomile and blood, fresh cedar and sour sweat.

A man in patchwork armour, Sergeant Edom presumably, rose from a chair near a choked fireplace to accost him, but Geralt shouldered past the mismatched guard and down the stairs into the jail. Jaskier was in the last cell on the left, sitting on the floor with his back against the wall and his hands chained above his head. Only rags remained of the once colourful costume he’d been wearing. He was unconscious and wheezing slightly, either from illness or broken ribs or both. He had very obviously been beaten, probably several times: a number of his delicate fingers were disjointed, one eye was swollen completely shut, an infection seemed to be festering in a cut on his lip and the pale skin poking through the holes in his tattered clothes was a tapestry of deep throbbing purples, sickly greens and angry aching reds.

Geralt’s vision tunnelled at the sight, greying out everything that wasn’t the broken minstrel. For how long? How long had he been chained here? How long had Geralt not known? When, even, was the last time he’d seen the man? The mental math he was fumbling through was not promising. Mind made up, and aware that he had already tipped his hand with the beeline he had made for the chained man, Geralt didn’t bother wasting time or mincing words. He turned to face the sergeant who had followed him down with the coldest look in his repertoire. “How much?”

“Heh.” Edom had been flustered when he’d felt he was out of his depth, but recognizing the power he had in the situation gave him the confidence to settle comfortably into the role of bully. “For that poor sod? He was twittering around making noises about things he shouldn’t have been, making some of the peasantry think twice about the reputation of their betters. But the local lordling up at Crow’s Perch put a paltry bounty on his head and his admirers turned to accusers quick enough. I don’t think any amount in the world would convince the magistrate to let him off.”

“How much would convince you?”

The man didn’t hesitate. “2000 crowns.”

It was a ridiculous sum. Geralt couldn’t afford it. Jaskier gasped, air caught painfully in his chest, and his breathing stuttered, leaving a handful of heart-wrenchingly long heartbeats before his next broken inhale. He definitely had a broken rib. Geralt couldn’t afford not to.

He was carrying, somewhat miraculously, around 1000 crowns. He’d been paid well for the seven days and six nights of the festival, so he luckily had far more in liquid assets on his person than usual. He also had saddlebags full of herbs, monster parts, a few trinkets and some spirits he had been planning to use for potions, fuck, if it came to it he could sell his swords… It would be close, but he could make it. “I don’t have it on me. Give me a few hours.”

If Jaskier had been conscious to see him walk away, Geralt never could have left. Metaphor aside, it would have physically killed him to see whatever meagre light his presence could have brought back to those bright blue eyes fade with his departing footsteps. As it was, scrounging up the money was the longest two hours of his life, constantly worried that by the time he came back with the coin the man would have changed his mind or gone off shift, or the magistrate would have sent specific orders, or Jaskier would have just died. Fate would just maliciously kill the normally effervescent man in that cell while Geralt was out scrounging up the cash to save him just to spite his best efforts. After selling an unscrupulous hedgewitch an unhealthy amount of specter dust (someone was getting cursed), pawning off all his medicinal herbs (and a not insignificant amount of alcohol) on what passed for the local medic and dragging the blacksmith away from his supper to barter over tarnished silver and faded gems and, ultimately, a hunting knife Eskel had given him a half a century ago, Geralt had the requisite sum.

Returning to the blemish of a building, he was relieved to note the same guard was still there. He goggled as Geralt handed over the money, and for a moment Geralt was concerned he would up the amount, given what he had already seen the witcher was willing to do, but ultimately, like all small-minded people everywhere, he clutched the coins covetously and slinked off to count his bounty, giving Geralt free run of the place. Grabbing the keys from the hook where they were hanging, Geralt took vindictive pleasure in the knowledge that it was almost assuredly a death sentence for Sergeant Edom. There was no way that a sudden windfall like that would go unnoticed by his superiors. It's unlikely they would take particular offense at the fact that he had accepted a bribe, but accepting a bribe without giving them a cut? That would not be overlooked.

Jaskier didn’t wake when Geralt unchained him and was disturbingly light in his arms when he lifted him as gently as possible, trying not to put any undue pressure on bruised and battered flesh. He stirred as Geralt climbed the steps, letting out a small moan and whimper, but no words. Checking the lock-up on the way out the door, Geralt noticed that, unsurprisingly for Claywich, most of Jaskier’s possessions had been stolen, but in the one small act of mercy in this entire affair, no one had bothered to take the lute. The cretins probably didn’t know what it was. Geralt collected Roach and, cradling Jaskier, rode hard for Blackbough. There was a decent pellar near there who owed Geralt a favour and would know how best to help the broken man in his arms. He was miles away from Claywich before he even remembered the contract that had brought him to the beaten bard in the first place, and it was only his consummate professionalism that kept Geralt from cursing the town aloud. He did think it very loudly though, in case any vengeful gods just happened to be listening and were open to suggestions, the worst curse any witcher knows: may you be killed by whatever it was you wanted me to hunt.

The pellar was just as good as Geralt remembered, and mercifully let the now broke Geralt work for the price of his professional talents, but it was still almost eight weeks before he pronounced Jaskier fit enough to leave the small sick room attached to his hut and venture back out into the world. The catalogue of injuries Jaskier had sustained would have been impressive for a witcher to survive, for the tender bard it was downright miraculous. Every evening, after a long day spent weeding gardens, hunting for elusive herbs, mending fences and roofs, chopping wood, culling the local aggressive predator population, tending a very spoiled goat named Princess and whatever other myriad and sundry chores the pellar could cook up for him, Geralt sat at Jaskier’s bedside just watching the younger man breathe and vacillating wildly between fervently thanking the gods he had survived and viciously cursing them for letting it happen in the first place.

The pellar was not so troubled and instead insisted the gods should be thanked for sparing Jaskier’s life. He had even, when the question of Jaskier’s survival was still terrifyingly unanswered, made Geralt chant the ritual call for healing with him the first few nights, his breathy and uneven baritone not so much supporting the pellar’s lilting tenor as limping along below it, so he never spoke of his bouts of blasphemy aloud. He didn’t think the gods would have been surprised to hear it though: as they in their unassailable wisdom were well aware, he had always had a contentious relationship with religion. In the moments when he was feeling more thankful, when Jaskier’s breath was steady and sure and his eyes flickered gently with peaceful dreams, he managed to mutter a few faithful words under his breath. They may have been paltry in comparison to the pellar’s more sophisticated and practiced supplications, but to be fair, Geralt had never prayed more sincerely than he had then. In the moments when Jaskier’s breath came quick and shallow and his body tensed with the memory of living nightmares, well, Geralt could only hope that the gods, in their infinite mercy, would understand the failing of fickle mortal hearts.

By the eight week mark, Jaskier was still sore, but back to a relatively normal schedule: he was sleeping uninterrupted through the night and spending his days helping with the less physically taxing chores around the hut, or reading, or softly strumming his lute with stubborn fingers weak from their freshly healed breaks. Geralt was pretty sure that there was still something seriously wrong with him, but the pellar had just shaken his head sadly and said that he had done all that could be done, but in anyone surviving abuse like that there were bound to be changes. Geralt hadn’t known what to say to that. He did know that he wasn’t letting the bard out of his sight for the foreseeable future, so he didn't ask Jaskier if he wanted to travel with him now that his professionally mandated convalescence was over. He just walked into the bard’s sickroom, noted that Jaskier was still flinching every time a door opened, and told him bluntly that they were leaving in the morning. Jaskier looked surprised, blinking widely up at the witcher, but didn't say anything. Which was really the problem.

Jaskier hadn’t spoken more than three words together since he had woken up in the pellar’s cottage. He would respond to yes or no questions with a nod and more detailed questions with fractured sentence fragments, as if every syllable cost him unknown resources to utter. He hadn’t actually said anything unprompted since… well… since he had eloquently wished Geralt a fond farewell and good hunting and prayed for their speedy reunion when they had parted in the autumn, before this whole mess. In the expanse of looming time spent sitting by his bedside, Geralt had had the time to work it out. It had been five months between that goodbye and the cell in Claywich. Jaskier could have been locked in that dungeon, alone and in agony, for five whole months. Or maybe it had only been a few days between his incarceration and Geralt’s rescue. He wasn’t a brave enough man to ask.

At first, Jaskier's silence had seemed an unasked for blessing. Geralt had expected to be subjected to any number of night terrors and gibbering panicked rants regarding his torture. He would have sat and held Jaskier’s hand through it, of course he would have, but he couldn’t deny the guilty feeling of relief that came with the growing realization that he wouldn’t have to hear the details of Jaskier’s time in Claywich, that he wouldn’t have to relive in his mind’s eye every snap of bone and squelch of flesh and spurt of blood. But when the bard was up and about, his silence seemed to hang in the very air around him like a tangible presence, as if the weight of everything he left unsaid had actual mass that left the bard struggling bravely under its accumulated gravity. The pellar had checked, repeatedly and very thoroughly at Geralt’s prickly insistence, and there was no actual lasting physical damage to the man’s vocal cords. He just didn’t seem to want to talk.

Three ominously silent days on the road out of Blackbough had given Geralt a lot of time to think. He knew that Jaskier had been incarcerated for talking, or rather singing, about something that had upset the local gentry. The sergeant Geralt had bribed for the bard’s freedom had told him as much. So Jaskier’s uncharacteristic silence was, more than likely, a trained behaviour. Pain, as Geralt was well aware from his years growing up under the merciless tutelage of the School of the Wolf, was an excellent teacher. But he’d also learned there that any trained reaction could be untrained, in fact had to be for a student to succeed. Bad habits in footwork could be corrected. Lazy swordsmanship could be tightened up. Weak forms could be beaten down, then remolded into strong, unyielding stances. All he had to do to get Jaskier back was break him of this new behaviour. He would never physically strike Jaskier, even to help him, but he would demand Jaskier answer questions in full proper sentences. He would not take head shakes or mumbled disjointed words for an answer going forward. He would make Jaskier speak, again and again, until it came naturally to him once more. Sometimes you had to be cruel to be kind.

This ruthless resolve lasted only as long as it took for him to be faced with an actual chance to implement it. When they stopped at a likely campsite on the side of the road, clearly well used as such by other travellers, Geralt had asked Jaskier if he would collect firewood and set up the camp while Geralt settled Roach and, wordlessly, Jaskier had only nodded in response. The witcher had cleared his throat and ominously rumbled, “Jaskier,” ready to insist on a proper answer, but when the bard had stiffened and turned back to him, hints of fear souring his normally sweet smell, Geralt had crumbled like a sandcastle in the rising tide. “Uh, do you want to split that bottle of Beauclair White tonight?” He didn’t get a verbal yes to that question either, only a small smile and another nod.

Geralt turned to busy himself with Roach, methodically taking off her tack, but once he heard the other man leave to gather kindling, wandering far enough away that his human senses could no longer discern Geralt, but never far enough away that Geralt’s enhanced ones could not pick up on him, the witcher planted his face in Roach’s mane and sighed in defeat. He had never been good at this kind of thing, not with the younger trainees at Kaer Morhen, who had quickly learned that despite his reputation as the twice-mutated White Wolf, they need never fear a thrashing from his hand and pranked him mercilessly in response, nor with the various Roaches he’d had over the years. The horse master who had been tasked with training him had utterly despaired of Geralt for this prominent weakness, not that the old witcher was around anymore to lament the mess Geralt had made of his instruction. Witchers did not raise and train their horses from foals; they did not have the kind of time that would require out on the Path. They always bought horses that were already broken to the saddle, but there were still a number of specialized behaviours they had to be taught to be truly useful to their monster hunting masters. He’d been given a crop and instruction on how to use it on his mount when he’d set out on the Path. He’d sold the thing, unused, not a week out of Kaer Morhen. Without it, he had to resort to cajoling and bribing the necessary actions out of his mounts, which was not a terribly witchery method of doing things. As the last rays of the sun faded away beneath the horizon and fireflies started to sparkle in the air, Roach turned her head to where he was still face planted in her side and started to nuzzle at his elbow in friendly solidarity, which made him smile. In spite of that lamentable deficiency in his character, he hadn’t actually done that badly with horses though. Which gave him an idea: would that work with Jaskier? Could he tempt Jaskier into talking? What would that even look like?

Geralt brushed his horse down as his mind danced over the possibilities. On the one hand, positive reinforcement for Roaches was easy. Horses were much simpler than people and universally like sugar. Jaskier does, actually, like sugar too and Geralt entertained a brief thought of just giving the man a sugar cube every time he acted a little more like his old self. It was a ludicrous enough image to make him smile at least, but he couldn’t imagine it actually working. So what else did Jaskier like? What else could work as an incentive?

Well, music, obviously, but as the pellar had so recently learned, Geralt’s singing voice left a great deal to be desired and he didn’t know any instruments. Wine, but there was a greater danger in encouraging that kind of coping mechanism. Women, but that’s not really something Geralt could give him, at least not without being creepy. Attention, or at least he used to; although that issue might be a little delicate right now. And besides, the man was already annoyingly occupying Geralt’s every waking thought while he tried to figure out how to fix this. Stories. Hmm. Stories. Geralt was grinning broadly by the time Jaskier returned from his collection, causing the now quiet man to do a small double-take and questioningly raise a brow. The witcher just waved off Jaskier’s unspoken question and lit the fire. Stories. That… that might actually work.

It had been days since Jaskier had said anything aloud, and they were both walking, Geralt leading Roach, when their destination just came into view on the horizon. Jaskier started for a second when he noticed the city, he obviously had been giving absolutely no care to where they were going, and then asked, quietly and almost unintentionally, “Vizima?”

“Yes. They always get archespores in the bog this time of year, so it’s a guaranteed job.” And that was it: Jaskier had said something aloud. Time to put his brilliant (and only) plan into motion. “I fought a katakan here once, years ago, but if you tried to write a song about it, I don’t think anyone would ever believe you, even if you didn’t give it your normal treatment. It already sounds like someone’s been embellishing it. The katakan was only picking up prostitutes, which in itself isn’t the odd part: they can get fixated on specific prey like that. I had to follow the girls on their nightly rounds though, in order to pick up its trail and I was absolutely swimming in this awful cloying perfume to hide my scent. In the end, I tracked it to this derelict manor house in the middle of a thunderstorm, complete with faded tapestries, tarnished candelabra, silver chalices filled with blood, and half naked buxom women chained to walls, who I’m sure all thought I was a complete clod since I kept laughing while I let them down. You know when something just looks too much like what people think it’s supposed to?”

“Cliché.” Jaskier was looking at Geralt like he had grown a second head. Which Geralt felt was fair.

“The funniest thing was that after all of that, the katakan was still just a katakan: smelled like rotting flesh, barely sentient and slobbering everywhere. I half expected it to be in evening wear. Honestly, I couldn’t stop laughing, which I suppose at least confused the thing because it didn’t end up putting up that much of a fight.” Geralt offered Jaskier a small smirk. “Anti-climatic.” He had learnt the word from Jaskier when the bard had explained to him why he’d changed the end of a story.

Jaskier looked like he wasn’t sure what to do with this information or why it had been given to him. Geralt really hoped this would work. He hated being the talkative one.

Vizima did, predictably, have archespores in the surrounding swamps, and, despite how dangerous the murderous plants were, Geralt let Jaskier tag along out of a continued lingering disinclination to let the bard out of his senses. He insisted on Jaskier borrowing a thick leather jacket, gloves and hood from a local alchemist however, as added protection against the archespores’ venomous projectiles. Getting the bard into the equipment should have been a boisterous production, as it was heavy and uncomfortable and, while understanding its purpose, Jaskier obviously didn’t like it. Instead Jaskier donned it all in silence, with nothing more than a few unimpressed faces. He cracked in the swamp itself though. After the third or fourth stumble and subsequently Geralt’s third or fourth time asking him if he was okay, Jaskier snorted and mumbled, “S’heavy.”

Which was good enough for Geralt. “The alchemist we borrowed that kit off of, Kalkstein, helped me cure a werewolf once. Or tried to, at least. Said he had a formula for a potion that would cure lycanthropy and had me prance all over the swamp collecting pieces of it for him. Finally he gives me the damn thing and when I ask if I just give it to the werewolf he lets me know that it is actually missing one last critical ingredient: a virgin’s tear. Which he just expected me to be able to produce on the spot.”

He couldn’t help but look askance at Jaskier to see if the bard was following the story, which, given his raised eyebrows and small smirk, seemed to be the case. It gave Geralt a warm feeling and he thought that maybe he understood a little why Jaskier liked storytelling. “And I mean literally produce. He’d heard witchers are sterile you see and jumped to a pretty startling conclusion based on that information. I pointed out that sterile didn’t mean impotent, but he just blinked at me and asked why you would bother if you weren’t trying to procreate. Instead of wandering into that mire, I lied. Told him witchers couldn’t cry either. I had to get the tear off of a townsperson. Really great for the reputation of my profession as a whole, me wandering the marketplace accosting young people and asking if they’re virgins.”

Jaskier was not laughing, but he was smiling and shaking his head, so Geralt pressed on. “Didn’t work though. And I guess I’ll never know if it’s because the formula was bunk or the chap who finally cried for me, an acolyte of the Order of the Flaming Rose who had taken a vow of chastity, was not as virginal as he claimed. You’ll like what the real solution ended up being, though.”

Jaskier, to Geralt’s satisfaction, took the bait. “What?”

The witcher stopped and grinned at him. “True love.”

“Bullshit.” Jaskier rolled his eyes in disbelief. But when they were back in Vizima a few days later to turn in various archespore parts to the proper authorities and alchemists, Geralt looked up Carmen and Vincent. When they told the story over dinner, instead of scoffing, Jaskier softly smiled and, Geralt noticed with something approaching glee, scribbled a few notes down in his journal. His early optimism that Jaskier would now write and sing a new song died slowly over the next few silent days though. Nevertheless, Geralt was determined to continue. Nothing worth doing was easy, after all.

On the journey between Vizima and Rinde, Jaskier only spoke once, to ask Geralt to pass him something. In return, he got the story of how it once took Geralt all afternoon to fight a golem, since the damn thing was nigh on indestructible and he dulled a decent blade chipping away at it over the hours. It wasn’t one of his better stories, so he isn’t that surprised when it doesn’t prompt more than a snort of amusement from the bard. He will have to do better next time.

There was no work in Rinde for a witcher, but Geralt brought them to the inn for the night anyway. They had a bit of money to spare, archespores were always a lucrative contract which is why when they set out from the pellar’s, pockets empty, Geralt had headed that way to begin with, and he thought Jaskier would appreciate a night in a real bed even if he no longer seemed entirely comfortable in the milling crowds of the common room. To Geralt’s pleasant surprise however, the bard, after gesturing to his lute case and receiving a nod from the barkeep, dragged a chair onto a table, sat himself in it, and started to play. He didn’t sing, but his fingers danced cleverly over the strings in complicated patterns producing layered melodies that entranced the locals all the same. When he finished, collected the scattered coins tossed in his lute case and joined Geralt at his table with a small smile, Jaskier looked more like himself than he had in ages. So Geralt decided, despite the man’s continued silence, that that was worth rewarding.

Geralt ordered a meal and a drink for the bard before starting his tale. “First time I ever fought a mage was here in Rinde. I was a bit nervous about it since the tricks I know are really nothing compared to the chaos they can throw around and the guy was very confident. It was real confidence too, not just bravado to cover nerves. I can usually smell the difference. So I figured he must have a plan for whatever I would come at him with. Maybe he’d even fought witchers before; I had no way of knowing. But I only had the one plan so I just went with it.”

Jaskier paused, fork halfway to his mouth. For a second Geralt thought he was going to ask him to continue, but sometime between opening his mouth to speak and the sound actually coming out he seemed to remember the people around him and, with an awkward blush of embarrassment blooming on his cheeks, gestured for Geralt to continue instead.

Geralt, despite the fact he was supposed to be encouraging Jaskier to talk, didn’t have the heart not to comply. “Threw a dimeritium bomb at his feet. He just stood in the magic deadening green cloud all confused, like he couldn’t believe I’d have taken my own mediocre magical powers off the table like that. As if hobbling him wasn’t worth it. Lopped his head right off before he’d even finished being bewildered.”

Heedless of the crowd, Jaskier actually smiled at that, eyes crinkling with unvoiced laughter. “Even without magic you’ve still got a big fucking sword.”

Geralt smiled back. “Exactly.”

Over the next few days, a tentative “Good morning,” got Jaskier the story of the time Geralt had fist fought a bear. A verbal request to stop for lunch got him the infamous (at Kaer Morhen, at least) story of when he and Eskel had caught a gigantic bumblebee, let it loose in the keep and then got walloped by Vesemir for it. A soft, “Let me,” when Geralt was trying to clean a small nekker claw scratch annoyingly out of reach on his back got him an admittedly somewhat melancholy retelling of the events that had led to him acquiring the moniker of Butcher of Blaviken.

He still wasn’t entirely sure why he had chosen that story, out of all of the ones he had, to tell Jaskier. With the bard’s rapidly strengthening fingers gently brushing grit and dirt out of the tiny stinging cuts, it had just tumbled out of him. He was surprised at how little it hurt. The story, not the cuts; those still stung like a bitch. But the once sharp ache of the tragedy in Blaviken now seemed dull and impossibly far removed from Jaskier’s tender ministrations and the chill evening air contrasting the warm safety of showing his back to a trusted companion. It was almost perfect, almost exactly like before, except Jaskier used to hum softly when he helped patch him up. So Geralt still had work to do.

After an almost unthinking “Oh, thanks!” at lunch and the subsequent story of a wight obsessed with collecting spoons, Jaskier didn’t speak again until supper. Geralt had gone to the nearby stream to refill the waterskins and come across a blackberry bush on his way back. Well aware they were Jaskier’s favourite, he’d pulled off his shirt to create a makeshift basket and returned to triumphantly bestow his bounty on the bard.

“Oh!” Jaskier had started when the fruit was dropped in his lap, but quickly tucked in. “I love blackberries!”

“I fought an archgriffin with one of your songs stuck in my head once.”

“What?” Jaskier looked up in surprise from his snack, lips sticky with berry juice. “Really? Which one?”

“The one about the girl who keeps turning into a swan at night. An archgriffin fight is mostly a battle of attrition. I can’t hit the damn thing when it’s in the air, so I need to tire it out until it lands. But it kept spiraling and swooping in rhythm with the tune and you’d sung it in the tavern the night before and the damn thing always gets stuck in my head. And I mean you have to be sort of paying attention to not get hit, but archgriffins are pretty easy to read, they’re not used to anything fighting back really, so I was just sort of humming it and then singing it and then I almost got gutted when the fucking thing broke time.”

Jaskier huffed a breath out. It wasn’t quite a laugh, but it was the closest he’d come since before. Geralt couldn’t help but notice that he looked a lot better and, after popping a few more blackberries in his mouth, he even resolutely met Geralt’s eyes and worked up the courage to ask, “Are you trying to train me to be talkative again?”

“Yes.” Geralt didn’t really see the point in lying about it. He hadn’t exactly been subtle in his efforts.

“You used to tell me to shut up all the time.”

“Used to.”

Jaskier smiled softly. “So every time I say something I get a vignette of your life?”

“Seems like.”

“How long is that going to last?”

“I suppose until I come to my senses and wish you’d shut up again.”

Jaskier smiled and huffed again and it was just so fucking close to a real laugh. He looked more like himself by the minute, and Geralt was so tired of holding back, so he impulsively made the snap decision to just push his usually notoriously shitty luck.

"Or until I run out of stories and have to fall back on my first idea.”

"Which was?"

"Sugar cubes."

And Jaskier laughed, actually laughed, and it felt like something breaking. Looking across the fire at the giggling bard with a lap full of berries, he looked loose and relaxed and free. And it felt perfectly like before. So Geralt didn’t feel the need to say out loud that he was pretty sure he would never tell Jaskier to shut up again.

It still took time before Jaskier was ready to sing again, especially in public, but eventually the ballad of Beauty and the Beast, Jaskier’s imaginative retelling of Carmen and Vincent’s story, won him the laurel in Novigrad at Beltane. Luckily for Geralt's peace of mind, he was comfortable humming and singing again when the two of them were alone long before then.

At the afterparty of the competition, Geralt, lounging in a corner nursing a weak beer and watching Jaskier charm the room, noticed another guest exasperatedly fleeing a conversation with the energetic and once again effervescent bard. Jaskier had been arguing his, evidently unpopular, opinion on the (many) faults of the classic Redanian ballad rhythm, and the more animated he got the less he let anyone else get a word in edgewise. Having given up on getting his own point across and seeing in Geralt what he believed would be a sympathetic ear, the discouraged debater retreated to Geralt’s side while Jaskier, unphased at losing his primary opponent, simply continued the argument with the other people around him. Quaffing his own drink, the frustrated man nodded towards Jaskier. “Sweet gods, does he ever shut up?”

Geralt finished the last of his drink. The alcohol, while weak, was abundant, the food was rich and plentiful and he hadn’t had to say more than three words all evening so far, Jaskier having handled both his introduction and the obvious responses to the host’s predictable small talk for the both of them. In that moment, he found himself to be unreasonably happy. “No.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr ([octinary.tumblr.com](https://octinary.tumblr.com)) if you want to say hi or ask me anything.
> 
> For those who are interested, I stole some of the stories Geralt's tells from the quests in the games, some of them for the stupid things I did while I was struggling through the games, and some of them are completely made up.


End file.
